Indigenous March Reaches Cochabamba

In November, thousands of indigenous campesinos from Bolivia's eastern departments marched for almost two weeks to arrive in the capital city of La Paz to demand land redistribution. Upon their arrival, the Bolivian legislature passed a law that promised to redistribute idle land belonging to Bolivia's hacenderos, large landowners, if they do not make it productive in the near future and public land. Many campesino organizations have criticized the land reform as too moderate, as it leaves many loopholes for the hacenderos to avoid land confiscation and often grants poor quality land in very remote areas to the landless peasants.